Room 613 Talk

Have you ever wondered about the land between two rivers? In other words Mesopotamia? Well I have. Here is many facts that may answer your questions. One thing first. Did you know that Mesopotamia is Greek for the land between two rivers? I didn’t. Also, do you know the names of the rivers? Well, they are the Tigris River and the Euphrates River. The one above Mesopotamia is Tigris and the one below it is Euphrates.

A while back Mesopotamia had the cities Nippik, Uruk, and Ur. Sir Leonard Willem was determined to find the city Ur. He searched for 12 years. Sir Leonard Willem is an English archaeologist. He and his family found several treasures. One of them was a lyre with a bull’s head covered in gold. (By the way a lyre is a harp like instrument.) Another treasure was a head dress in Queen Puabi’s tomb. It has golden leafs and flowers studded with precious stones. The last one that I’m going to tell you was the upright ram grazing on a tree. Other archaeologists uncovered a cemetery with many large tombs. Also, they found evidence of a deathly ritual which is when they found 74 dead servants of the kings who sipped poison then laid down to die. The servants did this so they could serve their king in the next life. Last, they found the first board game that resembles Backgammon.

Back then they had lugal-gals which means a big man who lead states to battle and eventually became king. Also there was shadoufs which are water wheels and farmers used them to move the water for irrigation. The people also used clay tablets to write in cuneiform on them but then they used triangles and to school only clay tablets were brought. Last things is that their houses were made of sun-dried bricks mixed with hay to make the walls stronger, and in the center of many cities there were huge stepped towers called ziggurats. There was a lost civilization called Sumeria with Sumerians. They were great inventors who invented the first plow, and the first potters wheel. The Sumerians did many things. Such as… 1. the oldest civilization 2. the first to form a government 3. developed architecture 4. wrote literature in history and 5. started and educational system. Can you believe there’s so much about Mesopotamia? There’s more too. But before I go I just have to tell you the population of Mesopotamia. It’s….. 30,000 people Now that’s a lot.